Page 139 of Fierce-Jax

Her father’s face was red enough he expected steam to come out his ears. It was on the tip of his tongue to suggest the older man sit down.

“Your mother told me you felt sorry for Martha.”

“No,” she said, shaking her head rapidly. “Mom felt sorry for her. I didn’t. I’d never let my daughter go through what Alec did. That’s not me. I don’t think she protected her child, but it’s not for me to judge.”

“Don’t defend Alec,” her father snarled. “He made his choices in life as an adult. Poor choices. Right, Jax?”

“I said the same thing,” he said. Not that he wanted to gang up on Dillion either, but he would not lie. “I can feel sorry for him as a child and what he went through. I can even agree that his childhood led him to make poor decisions. But he broke the law. He was an intelligent man who knew right from wrong. That’s on him.”

“That’s right,” her father said, crossing his arms and nodding his head. “It’s on him. Everything he did to you and could have cost you is on him. Are those the type of people you want around your daughter? I don’t want them around my granddaughter.”

“I’m sure Mom told you that isn’t going to happen any time soon, if at all. I haven’t decided what I’m doing, but there will be no visitations alone at all. Not while she is under eighteen. I can’t control her after that.”

Jax smiled over that.

They had talked about it last night.

He appreciated Dillion was open-minded enough to not keep this information from Gianna forever. That secrets never stayed hidden.

“Sure, you can,” her father said.

“No,” she said, her eyes wide. “You tried to control me and we had our fair share of fights over it. Mom was the one who held us together. Alec didn’t have that. I can’t change that, but I did think about what if he did still talk to his mother. What if he was in touch with her and they knew about me all along? They’d be part of Gianna’s life and there wouldn’t have been much I could have done about it.”

That crossed his mind too, but he hadn’t wanted to bring it up and sway her decision.

It was Dillion’s choice what she did, not his. And it was too early for him to play the peacemaker like he did so much in life.

He wasn’t even sure he wanted to when it came to Gianna.

Which went against everything he always stood for.

Guess it didn’t make him the nice guy after all.

“That didn’t happen though,” Dylan said. “So there is no reason to think about what-ifs. What you know is now. And your mother said that everything Alec told you was the truth.”

“Not everything,” she said. “There you are exaggerating again to get your narrative to the top. What that meeting with Martha proved was that Alec hadn’t lied about his relationship with his father. I never thought he did, but I didn’t know it all either.”

“Do you think you do now?” her father asked. “His mother could be lying to you. She could be using you to get to Gianna.”

“For what purpose, Dad? To gain what? If she was going to lie, she wouldn’t have admitted she threatened more so she could get a little.”

“You can’t trust any of what they say,” her father argued. “Just like you should have never trusted Alec.”

Dillion’s face was redder than her father’s and he wasn’t going to let this go on.

If she got pissed because he interfered, or Dylan did, he didn’t care.

He’d said he’d be there for Dillion and that meant having her back even if he didn’t disagree with everything her father was saying.

“I trust Dillion,” Jax said. “You should too. You raised her to make good informed decisions. She’s smart and she knows what is right and wrong and what is best for Gianna. She’s compassionate in that she’s open-minded enough to see Martha’s side of this, but also will put Gianna first and foremost.”

“You don’t know her like we do,” her father said. “She always says she has it covered and she doesn’t.”

“That’s not true,” she argued. “Many would say I’ve got my life together just fine even if it’s not whatyouwould do all the time.”

“I don’t need to know her for years to know the type of woman she is,” Jax said. He was pissed off now. “She’s a kind gentle woman who fights for those she loves. She’s listening to you and staying in this room while being insulted when she doesn’t owe you any explanation of what her decision is going to be. She’s not a child and she’s raising her daughter right. She’s raising Gianna the way she was raised and that means not being afraid to go to her parents for help if she needs it or is in over her head. But Dillion has the right to try to do it her way first!”

He hadn’t realized he was shouting until both Dillion and her father turned to him with their jaws open.